Christmas Day

Waiting on the stairs to see what Santa brought.  Even Tziporah was waiting.  She got a little stash of tiny clothing from Santa.

Xanthe loves the girl from Tangled.  Santa knew that, but he forgot that she wanted boots until Christmas Eve when he overheard her telling her mom, "I asked for a DSI and, of course, snow boots!"  There is just no limit to Santa's capabilities.  She got both!  The DSI is an absolute godsend for a kid like Xanthe.  This is a kid whose body vibrates on a high frequency at all times.  It's the kid who, two hours into Christmas, whined, "What can I do?"  She doesn't entertain herself and she can't do anything unless she has someone to tell her how to do it and someone to admire her while she does it.  She would rather pretend she doesn't know how to do something than do it without an audience and a private tutor.  At last, though, the long-awaited DSI was charged and Xanthe was able to blend into her surroundings, her attention on her little screen.  Now she can learn to choose her own games, take pictures, make videos and stay out of my face for an hour here and there!  We're still working on the concept of, "Xanthe, we see you playing your DS.  You don't have to follow me around pointedly and loudly using the stylus."  She is so funny.  Most kids can sit on the couch and play.  Xanthe will get up if I get up and follow me, holding her DS up high and sighing loudly, like she's saying, "Yep, here I am, playing my sophisticated toy like one of the big kids."  I SEE you, kid!  At least she's not demanding that I play cruise director/cocktail waitress/executive chef while she's playing her games.

A Swatch!

Freestone gathered up all the instructions for the video games he got and put them in the garbage.  He declared, "I don't need instructions.  All you need to know is TURN IT ON!"  Probably true for Freestone.  His mind is wired for stuff like this, whereas I occasionally still push on doors that say "Pull."  Freestone immediately caught on to his new game, which he can play with his cousins.  They all have action figures that go along with the video game.  In contrast, my parents got a Blu Ray player for Christmas.  Scott and Trajan hooked it up and spent a good fifteen minutes explaining to Coco and Bill what Blu Ray means.  Scott had to resort to making a copy of their remotes (they didn't know their scanner could make copies!  Bonus!)  and drawing diagrams of which buttons to push in order to get the movie to play.  We were all laughing.  I said, "Now don't go to Cosmos video and try to rent a movie.  (Cosmos still uses 3x5 cards to record your rentals!  Talk about the Dark Ages.)  I said, "Just go to RedBox."  That opened up a whole other discussion, but my parents were able to successfully rent a movie with the help of some nice people in line at the Red Box and somehow managed to watch it with little or no technical intervention.  Someday they might be as tech savvy as Freestone.

Ari loves to ride her bike.  She didn't think Santa would bring her a new one because Daddy told her he would fix up Mama's old bike instead.  She liked Santa's idea much better!  She wanted to ride the new bike to the store immediately and do some shopping.

Santa worked some magic to bring Golda a jacket she saw at Gardner Village two days before Christmas.  And you dared to doubt Santa's magical powers, Golda??  Golda came dangerously close to falling into the unbeliever camp this year and not getting any presents.  It's a good thing she cast aside her cynicism in time for Christmas.  Junior high can be brutal.  :)

Ruby got a beautiful new guitar that is bigger than the one she has been playing on.

The first thing Ptolemy grabbed was Ari's Webkin, a little pink horse.  He fell in love with it and declared it "Mine!"  He also got a box with a picture of some other kid riding a new tricycle.  He didn't like that at all.  It wasn't until the next day that he woke up from his nap and Daddy had transformed the mysterious box into an actual tricycle.  Much better!

200 blocks!  See, there really IS a Santa because Mom would never buy anything that has 200 pieces.  Santa knows his audience, though.  Ptolemy LOVES his blocks.

Everyone agreed that this Christmas has been the best one yet.  It was neat to go to church in the middle of it all, too, and reflect and be edified before rejoining the family festivities.  I hope you had a peaceful, wonderful holiday filled with love.